

ard Rob 




Class ... 

Book.__ -_Al?/f 



CopyrightN . 



/?03 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSfT. 



BY THE SAME 


AUTHOR : 


Sonnets of Jose-Mj 


VRIA DE 


Heredia 


Rendered into 


English, Third 


Edition ; 






Moods and Other 


Verses; 




Into the Light, 


Second 


Edition. 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 



VISIONS 

AND OTHER VERSE 

BY EDWARD ROBESON TAYLOR 




A. M. ROBERTSON 

SAN FRANCISCO, MCM1II 



THE LIBRARY OF 


CCNGR 


£SS. 


Two Copies 


R«ceived 




1903 


Copyright 


En.ry 


CLASS <V 


XXe. No. 


S X D 


« n 


COPY 


B. 






Copyright 1903 

by Edward Robeson Taylor 

Published April 1903 



PRINTED BY 

THE STANLEY-TAYLOR COMPANY 

SAN FRANCISCO 



TO 

JAMES ADDISON QUARLES 

PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE WASHINGTON 

AND LEE UNIVERSITY 

AND TO 

LLOYD MIFFLIN 

AUTHOR OF "AT THE GATES OF SONG" ETC 
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED 



CONTENTS 



Visions 

In Time of May 

A Summer Day 

The Days of Old 

The Master 

The Dreams of Long Ago 

Fancy's Children 

Imagination 

What it is that Man Sees 

Can This be Day 

The Pity of it 

Fears 

Mystery of Mysteries 

Wail 

Chastening 

Forward 

All is Best 

Her Resting Place 

Roses for Him 

Song 

Work 

The Balance 

Duty 

To Milton 

Music 

The Poet 

To William Cullen Bryant 



I 
z 
3 
4 
5 
6 

7 
1 1 

I Z 

*3 
'3 
'4 
'4 
15 
16 

17 
17 
18 

J 9 

ZI 

22 

23 
23 
24 
25 

z6 
z6 



[ vii ] 



CONTENTS 



To San Francisco 

My Sonnet Prison 

Adversity 

Under an Oak 

Mother's Love 

Christmas Hymn 

Question 

Faith 

Work and Service 

Unkissed . 

Unaccomplished 

Charles Lamb 

The Record 

In a Church 

Mystery 

Man's Heritage 

Out of the Shadow 

Poe 

To Walt Whitman 

Home 

After an Evening with Longfellow 

To Whittier 

Poetic Art 

Insight 

Reverie 

To a Soiled and Broken Volume of Bayard Taylor 

Defiance 

Endeavor 

To Keats 



Poems 



[ viii ] 



CONTENTS 




To Shelley .... 


57 


Refuge .... 


• 57 


At the Presidio of San Francisco 


58 


Night .... 


. 59 


Transmutation .... 


60 


Tennyson's Good Fortune 


. 60 


In November .... 


62 


Theseus and Ariadne 


. 63 


Ulysses and Calypso 


64 


Narcissus .... 


. 65 


Orestes ..... 


66 


To Goethe .... 


. 67 


Arria ..... 


69 


Perpetua .... 


. 70 


Dante and Beatrice 


7i 


Edelweiss .... 


. 72 


To Balzac .... 


73 


Near Midnight of December, 1899 


• 74 


On Receiving a Bunch of Holy Grass 


75 


Voices .... 


. 76 


Five Sonnets on some Pictures painted by William 


Keith : 77 


I Morning 


. 79 


II By the Roadside 


80 


III Into the Mystery 


. 81 


IV Memories 


82 


V The Unceasing Round 


. 83 


Browning .... 


84 


To the Sierras 


. 85 


Proof of God .... 


86 



[ ix ] 



CONTENTS 



To the Sonnet 

The Last Journey 

Now 

With the Lark 

With the Eagle 

Attainment 

Concentration 

Sufficiency 

Endure thou Faltering Soul 

Consecration 

Compensation 

Beatitude . 

My Muse 

Scorn not the Singer 

Dream 

Whither . 



87 
88 

93 
94 
95 
96 

97 
98 

99 
100 
101 
102 
103 
104 
105 
106 




Note. — Some of the pieces contained in this book were published 
in "Moods and Other Verses" (now out of print), others were 
printed for private circulation, "Memories" was published in the 
Impressions Quarterly, "Compensation" and "Into the Mystery" 
in the San Francisco Evening Post, while all the others now appear 
in print for the first time. Those heretofore printed have been 
carefully revised with especial reference to their insertion in this 
volume. 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

VISIONS 




H 



OPE drew me on to peaks that glittered 
bright 
Kjj With lovelier tints than rainbows ever 
'S^&SlL knew, 
While round my loitering feet rare blossoms 

grew, 
Steeped in the glories of immatchless light. 
In golden opulence the days were dight, 

With every sky cloud-free, save when there flew 
Great flocks of dreams that veiled the pulsing 

blue 
Only to thrill me with a new delight. 
Ah, this was in the time so long ago, 
I marvel much if it be truly so — 
Those memory-teeming, passion-hearted years. 
My life's once blazing fires are burning low, 

And in my cheek regret's unfathomed tears 
Have worn the channels age alone can know. 



[ i ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 



IN TIME OF MAY 





1 1 

W 



ITHIN thy silvern bars, oh, hold me fast, 
My Sonnet; — hold me safely, that my 

dream 
Of long-departed blooms on men may 
beam 
In all thy artistry of splendor cast. 
To heart-enchanting music of the Past 

Again I loiter by the woodland stream, 
Till on its memory-haunted banks I deem 
Myself with joys in fairy legion massed. 
Once more I seek the walnut's easeful shade 

To lie outstretched in taskless freedom there, 
As all the ravishments of May are mine; 
Once more with her that in the grave was laid 
Long, long ago, I breathe the fragrant air, 
And pluck at her fond wish the columbine. 




VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

A SUMMER DAY 

HAT treasure trove the languorous 

summer hours 
- When all their golden moments were 
[p^j£ll our own; 
Beneath some tree's soft shade to drowseful 

drone, 
And build in Dreamland fairy-peopled towers! 
The birds are dozing in their leafy bowers 

Save the woodpecker tapping far and lone, 
While dauntless bumble-bees make murmurous 

moan 
Among the blossoms of the drooping flowers. 
The sun sinks down in clouds that seem his pyre; 
And as the dusk is edging into dark, 
And Hesperus faintly trembles into fire, 
The lightning bug floats by — a glowing spark, 

While then we hear — ah, now I hear it still — 
The plaintive calling of the whippoorwill. 



[ 3 ] 




VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

THE DAYS OF OLD 

ERE let me put my daily burden by, 
To live again one consecrated hour, 
While sceptred Memory with increasing 
power 

Commands obedient pageant for mine eye : 
Ah, what procession floats beneath my sky, 

Of long-evanished joys in spring-time flower, 
When boundless realms were youth's demanded 

dower, 
And all its troubles but a tear or sigh ! 
And she the fairest of the ghostly throng, 
Who so entreats me with celestial gaze, 
Leaps in my heart and trembles in my song; 
O purple-gloried, haunting, hallowed days, 

When she and I walked Love's enrapturing 

ways — 
She that in Death's cold arms has lain so long! 



[ 4 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

THE MASTER 




ROM out his noble face there looked 
an eye 
» Bespeaking mastery; — ah, I see him now 
£nrfj*j^ With gathered thunders on his clouded 

brow 
Whence lightnings leaped that none would dare 
defy. 
Yet kind and patient he, nor ceased to try 

The veriest dunce with learning to endow; 
But work half-done he never would allow, 
Nor could he compromise with any lie. 
And sweet to him the wine of joysome play 

That sent the blood all tingling through the 

veins 
To drive the harassment of tasks away; 
And now his years are done, there still remains 
Such love for what he gave me of my gains, 
It warms my heart as if new-born to-day. 



[ 5 ] 




VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

THE DREAMS OF LONG AGO 

HESE dreams of mine refuse to let me 

go, 
And hold me fast with such entreating 
face, 

With such insistent fondness of embrace, 
That once again I range the Long Ago; 

Nor at this moment would I care to know 

The Present's most rememberable grace; 
My feet are bounding in the woodland race, 
And everywhere Hope's ringing trumpets blow. 

The unbounded forest and its streams are ours, 

Its luscious fruits and nuts, its beauteous flowers, 
With trees that lift their splendors to the sky; 

While rare, melodious birds such strains prolong 
That all the universe is filled with song, 
And nought that breathes seems ever born to die. 



[ 6 ] 




VJSIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

FANCY'S CHILDREN 

HERE do Fancy's children nest, 
Breeding thoughts we love the 
best ? — 
PnajMffi In the leaves with freshness gay 
When the Spring is on her way, 
Sweetly breathing balm and song 
As she lightly skips along; 
In the heart of daffodils 
Beating as some fairy wills; 
Honeysuckle giving sweets 
To the trellis it entreats; 
Poppies that for sunbeams hold 
Most appealing cups of gold; 
Pansies whose irradiant eyes 
Watch the jasmine's envied vine 
Near the maiden's casement twine; 
Dandelion's stars that glow 
In the meadow's emerald skies; 
Lilacs of the long ago, 
Tremulous with memory's sighs; 
Roses grand in gorgeous show, 
Marguerites that lovers know, 
And in every kindred one 

[ 7 ] 



FANCY S CHILDREN 

Drinking joys of dew and sun; 
Sooth, in least that decks the ground 
Fancy's children may be found. 
In the merryhearted stream 
Where some naiads rest in dream, 
While the crystal waters make 
Drowseful music lest they wake; 
In the peaceful pools that lie 
Where the umbrage veils the sky, 
And no voice on us may call 
Save the beat of waterfall; 
And in nook of secret dell 
Where an oread from her cell 
Deeply hid is wont to spy 
Lovers' raptures throbbing nigh; 
Here with all that's beauteous crowned 
Fancy's children may be found. 
In the dryad-haunted tree 
With its branches spreading free, 
Whose sequestered, cooling shade 
Only dreams and we invade; 
And in cloud of snowy fleece 
Floating swanlike overhead 
On its azure sea of peace, 
By the zephyrs gently sped ; 

[ « ] 



fancy's children 

Ah, in this enchanted ground 

Fancy's children may be found. 

In the horses of the surge 

Rearing high upon its verge, 

So to leap upon the shore 

With impetuous, deafening roar, 

While from out their mouths the spume 

Seethes and hisses as it flies; 

In the ships that faintly loom 

Under rainbow-tinted skies, 

Sailing safe on sapphire seas 

To the golden port of Ease, 

There unlading costly bales 

For the hope that never fails; 

Ah, in these domains renowned 

Fancy's children may be found. 

In the dawn's wide-opening rose 

Which in sudden beauty blows 

On the east's enraptured breast, 

As it beams upon the bed 

Where some lady's lovely head, 

Filled with him she loves the best, 

Gently stirs within its nest; 

In the visions flitting by 

When the day is fain to lie, 

[ 9 ] 



FANCY'S CHILDREN 

Wearied out, in final rest, 
On the bosom of the west; 
In the stars that bless the night 
With magnificence of light, 
As the moon, like any ghost, 
Glides amid their countless host, 
Weaving with her silvery beams 
Love's eternal, magic dreams; 
Ah, in this capacious bound 
Fancy's children may be found. 
In the memories floating up 
From the long-evanished time, 
When with joy in every cup 
All the moments rang in chime, 
As with her, death would not spare, 
Hand in hand we silent strayed 
In the perfume-laden air, 
Till a glory round us played, 
And the beauty of her eyes, 
Newly lit with love's surprise, 
Told the story that still lies 
In the heart where, wet with tears, 
It shall grieve through all the years; 
In the Garden of Delight 
Boyhood's feet alone can know, 

[ 10 ] 



fancy's children 

Where all wonders fill the sight, 
And all joysome blossoms grow; 
Sooth, where fairies love to be 
Fancy's children you may see; 
But the maiden's guileless breast 
Is by them beloved the best, 
Where to every rapturing sound 
Are they alway to be found. 



IMAGINATION 

How insignificantly small we seem; 

Yet marvellous times there are, 
When every sense in sublimated dream 

Wings on from star to star; — 
Ah, then all principalities are ours, 
And we, immortals with Herculean powers. 



1 1 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

WHAT IT IS THAT MAN SEES 




HAT dost thou see when without thee 
thou lookest, O all-searching Man ? 
Life, ever life, amid changes by multi- 
plex rhythms controlled — 
Rhythms that beat without end in immensity's 

vastness of space, 
Mingling and blending in chorus to sing of the 
Order Divine. 

What dost thou see when within thee, thou lookest, 

O all-searching Man ? 
Thee as a spirit and atom of all the mysterious 

whole ; 
Giving as well as receiving, bound to the infinite 

past, 
Made by and making thy future that stretches 

eternally on. 



[ 12 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 



CAN THIS BE DAY? 




C 



AN this be day ? The stars have fled; 
Dawn's banners brighten overhead; 
The wagons roll along the street, 
fflfl^TJSff -^nd men g° by w ^ tn hastening feet; — 
Ah, yes, it must be day. 

But come and see where cold she lies, 
Death's fingers on her once-bright eyes; 
With pallid lips that cannot stir; 
The aching mother bent o'er her; — 
Ah, no, 'tis night, not day. 



THE PITY OF IT 




OW bloomed round her the flowers of 

nuturing care, 
How breathed on her Home's kindliest 
summer-air, 

How softly smooth her daily paths were made, 
From that sweet moment Life first gave her breath 
Until that bitter time her dear head laid 
Its lilied beauty in the lap of Death ! 

[ 13 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 



FEARS 




Y heart was kept with fear astir 
Lest lightest harm might come to 

her; 
My lips could not have dared to 
speak 
One word to pale her bloomy cheek. 

But now my fears are gathered up 
In grief's exhaustless wormwood-cup, 
And though I spoke in loudest tone 
Her cheek no paler hue could own. 



MYSTERY OF MYSTERIES 

In mystery's face I could but peer 
When she my heart of heart did fill, 
And yet her pulseless beauty here 
Proclaims a mystery greater still. 



[ 14 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

WAIL 



ROM out a wood where waters ran 
As only joyful waters can, 
^^jj^^X Where flower and tree with 



-j^^i rapture heard 
The ecstasy of many a bird, 
And in the air was such a lull 
That everything of peace seemed full, 
I sudden came upon a cave 
With brooding gloom as of the grave, 
And peering in the darksome nave, 
Awe-struck I saw upon a stone 
A mother bowed in grief alone. 



[ 15 i 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 



CHASTENING 




| WOMAN, great of form and face, 
Who seemed to be of Sorrow's race, 
Led me away from sun-bright air, 
And from the trees and blossoms 
fair, 
To lonely depth of solemn wood 
Where but the sombre cypress stood. 

She gently breathed a wordless prayer, 
Then left me strangely dreaming there; 
And when I waked, a newer grace 
Was round me as with love's embrace, 
And forth I went in heartened mood 
Beneath the spell of chastening's good. 



[ 16 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

FORWARD 



HAT note is this which sweeps 
Along the mountain steeps, 
^ Where neither grass nor tree 




im 



Ipi&jft Nor verdured thing can be ? 



'Tis Life's great trumpet blown 
By lips that heroes own : 
" The death-strewn Past is gone — 
The Present's yours; — march on!" 



ALL IS BEST 

The world o'erflows its cup of woe, 
Each heart has felt the knife of pain, 
But I would have my soul to know 
That all is best, that God doth reign. 



[ 17 i 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 



HER RESTING PLACE 




HE rests not where the bending 
flowers 
Can spill their perfumes over her, 
But in the cells of loveliest flowers 
Her fleshly atoms once more stir, 
To give those blooms the brightest hue 
That e'er before their petals knew, 
While in the urn her ashes lie 
White as her soul that cannot die. 




[ 18 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

ROSES FOR HIM 

You that loved him, gather here 
Round his bier. 

Let the roses heaping rest 
On his breast. 

In his heart their sweets were hived 
While he lived, 

And he might unquiet be 
If that we 

Did not give his bed of death 
Their dear breath. 

Mid their fragrance let us say, 
As we pray, 

How he nursed a patient mood 
Filled with good — 



[ 19 ] 



ROSES FOR HIM 

Good that flowed without an end 
To his friend; 

How, whatever stress might be, 
Equal he ; 

How with every breath he drew 
He was true; 

How he charmed us with a tone 
All his own, 

Stingless wit and ready sense 
Flowing thence; 

How he walked affection's ways 
All his days; 

And how Beauty's conquering art 
Held his heart, 

Till he seemed her very child 
Undefiled. 



[ 20 ] 



ROSES FOR HIM 

Gather then with roses here 
Round his bier, 

And in heaps upon his breast 
Let them rest. 



SONG 




A 



LWAYS be the same, sweetheart, 
Or we must forever part; 
Smiles to-day and frowns to- 

frj^^bSrSt morrow 

Can but bring us anxious sorrow; 

Be the same as now thou art, 

And we shall not, cannot, part. 

Do I doubt thee? — never! never! — 
Love shall bind us fast forever; 
In thy softly-folding arms 
Life for me can have no harms; 
Pillowed on thy fragrant breast, 
Come what may I must be blest. 



[ 21 1 



mSk 


T 


lyV^w'i 




"* - "^* 3 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

WORK 

]|0 age-worn palace veiled with vine and 
tree 
I listless came one summer afternoon, 
A self-invited guest who craved the boon 
Of peaceful idlesse in that privacy; 
And there I saw, as swung the doors for me, 

Some of the inmates lounge as half in swoon, 
While others gaped and yawned, tried trivial 

tune, 
Turned a few leaves, then wandered aimlessly. 
And when Ennui, the jewelled queen of these, 

Rose languid from her couch of poppied ease, 
With greeting such as indolence could spare, 
I fled aghast, the humblest tool to seize, 

And as its strokes with music filled the air, 
Peace spread her wings in holy blessing there. 



[ 22 ] 




VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

THE BALANCE 

OOK not on erring Man as one who teems 
With ills that slay him: his etherial 

thought, 
■cji^jffl. Thrilled by imagination's glorious 

dreams, 
Rears deathless fanes in gold and purple wrought; 
His science tests and probes all things that are, 
Piles fact on fact, and in its thirst to know 
Dares lay its finger on the farthest star; 
Beneath his hand, its purest wealth to show, 
All forms of beauty exquisitely grow; 
His wand of music bids all raptures rise, 
Tears, and the passioned heart's supremest cries, 
While Love's own fount wells joyous in his breast 
With crystal stream to give the wearied rest. 



DUTY 

Duty is all in all; find it and then 

Strike for thine own and for the souls of men. 



[ n ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 



TO MILTON 




HOU star-crowned, peerless Milton, 

thine to know 
The moans and thunders of the surging 
seas ; 

The tinkling laugh of rippling rills; the trees' 
Soft murmurs multitudinous; and so 
Thy deeply-wrought imaginations flow 

With long-drawn roll of mighty harmonies, 
As with dulcifluous, tripping melodies, 
In Beauty's unextinguishable glow. 
Thou art the starry wonder of thy time — 
The favored child of every lofty lore, 
And in thy soul, as in thy verse, sublime. 
Thou gavest England, when she needed sore 

Her strongest and her best, one man unique 
Who grandly blended Puritan with Greek. 



[ 24 ] 




VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

MUSIC 

HE murmurous monotone of waving 

grain 
When winds are gently winging down 
^Jgfl! the vale; 
The storm-voiced billows drowning men bewail ; 
The pattering stroke of softly- falling rain; 

The sighing leaves which bend to every tale 

The breezes tell; the songster's lilting strain, 

From feeblest note of all the joyful train 

To rapturous burst of peerless nightingale; — 

What are all these, and all that human ear 

In sweetest concord from their kin can hear, 
But hints of deeper rhythms as yet unheard; 

That in the soul ineffable of things 

An ordered music, by the eternal word, 
Throughout the vast of space divinely sings. 



[ 25 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

THE POET 

He crushed his heart for wine of song 
The sordid souls of men to glad; 
But by him passed the scoffing throng, 
Nor dreamed he was divinely mad. 

TO WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 




HAT gift of song was thine! — for in 

thy great 
Miltonic cadences the mighty heart 
Of nature beats, anon with joy serene, 
Anon with melancholy sad as leaves 
By Autumn kissed, but alway with a hope 
That sings its music to the darkest hour. 
With thee we lose ourselves within the wood, 
And make the tree our brother; every plant, 
That spreads its modest beauties to the sun, 
Or nestles in the shade, is then our kin, 
And we with them on nature's kindly breast 
In silence hearken to the voice divine. 
The flowers of the field were thy dear friends, 

[ 26 ] 



TO WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 

Who spake their message to thee as to one 

They trusted; and in swelling, golden note 

Of sounding rhythm thou gavest it to us, 

To keep enshrined within the heart of love. 

All things that walk or fly could set thy soul 

To music's beat, as did that waterfowl 

Which caught thine eye, when in the vast 

Of space's unimaginable waste, 

Alone, yet confident, it took its way, 

And where, through thee, transfigured and sublime, 

It keeps forever an unwearied wing. 




[ 27 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

TO SAN FRANCISCO 




o 



CITY of our life and hope, 

That sittest by this westmost sea, 
8X Thy lovers pray thy widest scope, 
nrfjjy And deepest in the yet to be. 



May Learning's temples rear their towers 

Above thy unpolluted ways, 
And all the strength of all thy powers, 

Build only what good men can praise. 

May stranger ships bring costly bales 
From every near and distant land, 

And in return thy winged sails 

By prospering winds be ever fanned. 

May arts and crafts with newer life, 
And greater, sing their highest notes, 

While over all with glory rife 
The flag of peace divinely floats. 



[ 28 ] 




VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

MY SONNET PRISON 

]|ULL oftentimes my friends have said 
to me: 
" Give o'er the sonnet, since thou dost 
but lie 

At leaden length beneath its narrow sky — 
A slave imprisoned when thou mightst be free. 
Though true it is the masters loved by thee 

Have in that cage sung strains that cannot die, 
Yet they were those who could all bonds defy, 
And soar at will in Art's immensity." 
Then I to them : " No eagle's wings are mine, 
That tempt the vastness of immortal song, 
To rest at last on fame-encrowned years. 
Leave me my prison bars, to me divine, 

Where with the Muse I have communed so long, 
And on her breast have shed memorial tears." 



[ 29 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

ADVERSITY 




HEN glad Fortuna, as a friend to thee, 
w Her more than liberal spoils before thee 



w m* brings ' 

JJj^SbSK Beware the serpent, slyly hid, which 
stings 
The soul with poison of Prosperity. 

Thou never mayst revealing visions see, 

Nor mount with seraphs on immortal wings, 
Unless within thy deepest being springs 
Some tear-fed fountain of Adversity. 

The steel that Florence drove in Dante's heart 
He fashioned to a lyre, whereon with ease 
He deathless rose above the hells of hate; 

And when life-wearied Milton sat apart, 

Lonely and blind, he swept those organ keys 
Whose tones from age to age reverberate. 



[ 30 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

UNDER AN OAK 




HE cloudless azure stretches overhead; 
Afar the haze-veiled mountains tranquil 

lie; 
The breeze-kissed leaves are dancing in 
the sky- 
As if by sprites of every joyance led; 
The golden hay in many a mound is spread, 
To ripen in the sun's all-glorious eye; 
And rapture-hearted birds are twittering nigh 
The oak where dreams and I have made our bed. 
Yet here in bristling ranks the thistle stands, 

With winged seeds in millions in its hands, 
While now I mark a great hawk wheeling low; 
And as I breathe this paradisal air, 

My friend can but the pangs of illness know — 
Bereft of joys that once he thrilled to share. 



[ 3i ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

MOTHER'S LOVE 




A 



S through the sweets of verse our talk did 
run, 
jSX My friend said, " Cage me in thy sonnet, 

W^PSSl P^y, 

A thought whose song shall tempt the Muse to 

say, 
Ah, this, indeed, is an immortal one ! " 
" Is it," I asked, " a maid's fond heart undone? 
Or some far lesser grief? Or does the way 
To fairest memories open to thee?" — "Nay, 
'Tis Mother's Love — flame-hearted as the 
sun."— 
"Thou seekest what thou knowest is in vain, 
Although before me were a Dante's pen, 
Heart's blood for ink, with strength to make 
them mine, 
And though my sonnet bars their bounds should strain 
Beyond imagination's farthest ken 
Till bathed in all the ecstasies divine." 



[ 3^ ] 




VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

CHRISTMAS HYMN 

CHRIST, on this thy natal day, 
As oft before, we fain would pray; 
And as the bells in laud of thee 
Ring joyous over land and sea, 

With every feeling sounding back 

Along our lives' eventful track 

That led from thee, ah, let us dare 

To fill our starving souls with prayer. 

Give us the passion-conquering might 

In every stress to do the right; 

And should we fall, as like we may, 

Help us to front another day. 

Add strengthening light to our weak eyes 

For them to view fresh splendors rise, 

And see that at our very feet 

The richest things may lie complete. 

Oh, lift us in thy blessed arms 

Above the fear of loud alarms 

To where the flower of courage grows 

On hope-crowned heights that duty knows, 

[ 33 ] 



CHRISTMAS HYMN 

Till thrilled with that divinest air, 
No longer dreaming of despair, 
We shall go on from day to day 
Despite all lions in our way. 

Oh, give to us such spirit-needs 
As teach the scorn of hates and greeds, 
And light within our breast the fires 
Of wisdom-hearted, high desires; 
Of love for all without constraint, 
Of love that dares not halt nor faint, 
Though it lead us, as it led thee, 
Along the road to Calvary. 

May we with thee so closely live 
As that we freely can forgive, 
Although our heart be torn by one 
The best beloved beneath the sun, 
And though the friendship built of old 
With rarest gems and purest gold 
Be prostrate laid, and we remain 
In irremediable pain. 



[ 34 ] 



C HRISTMAS HYMN 

O Christ, on this thy holiest day, 
Accept our homage as we pray; 
Upon us pour thy healing balm, 
Till every pulse, serenely calm, 
And tuned to love, undaunted beats 
With harmony's ambrosial sweets, 
While centred in our souls increase 
The priceless treasures of thy peace. 

QUESTION 

Outside, the rain is dreary, 
Inside, my heart is weary, 
Outside, the winds are sighing, 
Inside, my hopes are dying; — 
O Earth, where is thy beauty? 
O Soul, where is thy duty? 



[ 35 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

FAITH 

Though man be lost in maze of mystery's land, 
'Tis his to feel if not to understand, 
And hear the heartening voice that ever sings 
Of all the deep divinity of things. 

WORK AND SERVICE 

Through work and service thou mayst see 
The inmost heart of liberty, 
And make thy sum of days to be 
One fused organic unity. 

UNKISSED 

O lips that moan unkissed 

Beneath Love's luring sky, 
What raptures you have missed, 

What pangs have passed you by ! 



[ 36 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 



UNACCOMPLISHED 



H 



E parcelled off from Beauty's vast 
demesne 

K3jJ(^3S One little spot that seemed so very fair, 

Tj^S^SS* He thought his soul might rest securely 
there, 
Triumphant in a spring of fadeless green; 

And in the distance looming clear were seen 

Great towers that wooed such empyreal air, 
They mocked alike man's ravage and his care, 
Beaming like stars eternally serene. 

Then came the Muse and whispered in his ear 
Seductive sweetnesses that so beguiled, 
He dared a tower of his own to rear; 

But scarce one dawn beheld it, when a wild 

Wind smote it, and in night that knew no gleam 
It crashed to fragments as a shattered dream. 



[ 37 ] 




VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

TO CHARLES LAMB 

H, many a year has fled, dear Lamb, 

since thou 
Tasted the bitter and the sweet of death, 
But Love thy name hath nurtured so, 
that now, 

As scarce before, it greenly flourisheth. 
Thou hadst sincerity without a flaw, 
And lovedst all so deeply and so true, 
Thou to the beggar and the sweep couldst draw, 
And see their hearts their rags and tatters through. 
Thou hadst no theories for wayward man, 
Nor sought to teach some lesson to thy kind, 
But livedst patiently thy little span, 
To hopeless ills courageously resigned. 

Thy writings leave us debtors evermore, 

But what thou wast makes still the richer store. 



[ 38 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

THE RECORD 




w 



HEN thy stilled hands lie folded on thy 

breast, 
„ As some day they will be at death's 

j^j^j^jjj^ desire, 

What praise could wake the silence of thy rest, 

What censure rouse thy indignation's fire? 

O moment incommunicably dread ! 

For then how mend life's slightest broken thread, 

Or kiss to warmth the love by thee betrayed, 

Or slay the least of those thy passions bred, 

Or haste with joy some fallen one to aid, 

And set the crown of hope upon his head? 

What's done is done, on lines thyself hast laid; 
Nor canst thou scape the forfeit to be paid : 
No deed of thine can hope for funeral pyre, 
Nor can Time's flood with still increasing ire 
Erase one record thou hast ever made. 
From man's memorial tablets it may fade; 
But on the book the Eternal Justice keeps, 
With omnipresent eye that never sleeps, 
'Twill be emblazoned through unending years 
Though grieved contrition shed a sea of tears. 

[ 39 ] 




VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

IN A CHURCH 

ILE-ROOFED and low it meekly 

stands, 
The loving work of loving hands, 
And views, from out its cross- 
crowned tower, 
Its garden plot of tree and flower. 

Within, madrona trees, love-slain, 
With joy renewed live once again, 
To hold, in still unwearied arms, 
The naked ceiling's modest charms. 

A holy hush is in the air, 
As though the spirit's essence there 
Had been distilled and entered all 
That lay within the sacred wall. 

The song is sung, the prayer is said, 
The Book, and sermon thence, are read, 
While from the wings of Peace outspread 
The balm of blessedness is shed. 



[ 40 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

MYSTERY 




w 



HAT notes of mystery in our being 
sound ! — 
JB The unimaginable depths of space; 
£b4rS* The multitudinous worlds in pauseless 

race 
To distant goals beyond all dreaming's bound; 
This orb of ours whereon man sits encrowned 
A God and Devil — void of any place 
Where Life and Death meet not in fierce 

embrace, 
To what deep purpose thought has never found. 
There is no great or small: this grain of sand 
Its secret holds, as does the shaping hand 
Which fast cements it in the building's wall; 
And this vain butterfly, that only can 
In winged rapture hasten to its fall, 
Mysterious is as thy great soul, O Man. 



[ 41 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

MAN'S HERITAGE 




M MORTAL Man, what treasure falls 

to thee ! — 
The ages million-yeared whose life- 
blood still 

Flows through the channels of thy good and ill, 
As will thine own through those that are to be; 
The prisoned secrets yearning to be free; 

The infinite-sounding harmonies that fill 
All space and being; and that supremest Will 
Which weaves the web of life's great mystery. 
Dig where thou wilt and thou shalt jewels find, 
As will thy brother in no less degree 
Who searches centuries hence with deeper mind; 
For thou art ruled by such divine decree, 

And in the Eternal's breast art so enshrined, 
Thy wealth can feel no bound's extremity. 



[ 42 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

OUT OF THE SHADOW 



WOULD not have the world's regard- 
less eyes 



(l^Jj^SX Rest on this verse made consecrate with 

$SSj£?88$ tears 

For one who in the spring-time of his years 
Sank down o'erburdened, never more to rise ; 

But those alone whose unavailing cries 

Have risen like mine for all the heart endears 
I would have here to pause, and in his bier's 
Deep shadow share my bosom's agonies. 

Yet as Grief hands the bitter cup around, 
And deeper grows the shade's intensity, 
Our souls may hear some new, far-falling sound; 

And mid its throbs divine it then may be 

That Life will stream with richer thought, and 

we 
Deem Death a monarch with effulgence 
crowned. 



[ 43 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 



POE 



E walked beneath the raven's wing 
A wayward child in lightless gloom, 
And there his trancing songs did 
sing 
And weave his haunting tales of doom. 



Hf^§ 


H 




ZLmCJIhmumm^S 



He drank from Beauty's honey-cup, 
Pressed to his eager lips by Art, 

Until her nectar swallowed up 
The very substance of his heart. 

Upon her lines his structures grew, 
In form most cunningly designed, 

While demons that he nurtured slew 
The peace and sweetness of his mind. 

With hopeless sighs and bitter tears 
He filled his sad, remorseful hours, 

Yet reared the while, for all the years, 
His beauty-crowned, enchanted towers. 



[ 44 ] 




VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

TO WALT WHITMAN 

HOU roughest-hewn of all the poet kind ! 
Not thine to tinkle rhyme's melodious 
bell, 
'f^jjftjjJL Nor set to music of harmonious swell 
The thoughts that surged within thy shoreless 
mind; 
Not these could Art to lightest durance bind, 

Nor sensuous Beauty with her deepest spell 
Entice them in her fair demesne to dwell ; 
But formless, ruleless they as unconfined. 
\et, giant soul, thy loud-resounding lyre, 

Whose tones the wondering world still leans to 

hear, 
Thrills every spirit that would dare to be 
Inflamed with that unique, immortal fire, 

Which made thee what thou wast — the grandest 

seer 
And noblest poet of Democracy. 



[ 45 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 



HOME 




F earthly things thou top of blessings — 

Home! 
Safe refuge where the overburdened soul 
Lays down its weary weight of toil and 
care, 
To softly fall into the arms of rest. 
In deep dreams there the frets of life are hushed, 
Its turmoils and its woes, while the stopped ears 
Hear nought of clamor's unrelenting noise 
That roars tumultuous in the world without. 
And there the mistress of the blest abode 
In sweetest tyranny serenely sways 
Her silver sceptre over all the house, 
Until each feverous, hesitating pulse, 
Ruled by the music of her heartening love, 
Beats to the measure of melodious peace. 



[ 46 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

AFTER AN EVENING WITH 
LONGFELLOW 




OULD I but mount with something of 
thine ease, 
Sjgr< And lightly wing the empyreal air 
^n&jjJL The muses breathe, I would not now 

despair 
To rise in praise of thee on lines like these; — 
Now, when thy dulcet, fine felicities 

All freshly lie upon my soul, and wear 
A bloom so richly, beautifully fair, 
They mock expression's subtlest alchemies. 
No deliration ever mars thy strain, 

No puling, weak complaining nor lament, 
Nor formless numbers hobbling slow along; 
But borne on waves of music, sweetly sane, 
Serenely passioned, suavely eloquent, 
It glows with witching art of noble song. 



[ 47 ] 




VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 



TO WHITTIER 

i 
OME verse there is death cannot touch 

although 
It may not nest upon the loftiest height, 
To spread its pinions in untiring flight 



Where constellations in resplendence glow; 
Nor yet by Fancy fondly fellowed know 

Her fairy realms of exquisite delight; 

Nor with Imagination's stopless might 

Range the vast regions of our bliss and woe; — 
For it hath cradled in the human breast 

Feelings and thoughts with which we would not 
part ; 

And hath in loving, saving strength possessed 
The power to move the universal heart, 

And so will be by all the muses blest 

As long as joys shall sing, or tears shall start. 



[ 48 ] 



TO WHITTIER 



II 



UCH verse, O Whittier, thy muse 
employs : 
KiJjF(§SI5 For thou dost sing in unaffected lay 

'S^SSSk Of maidens fair, of childhood's glorious 

day, 
Of natural things unmixed with base alloys; 
Dost mint the gold that lies in homely joys, 

And gently mov'st in such consummate way 
The human heartstrings to melodious play, 
That restful music drowns the world's mad 
noise. 
New England lives in thy delightful line: 

There do her household hearths our love con- 
strain ; 
There do her tales with freshened beauty shine, 
Her fields, her woods, her skies, her stormy main; 
While over all the Power we feel divine 
Upholds eternal, universal reign. 



[ 49 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 



POETIC ART 




HE cities vanish; one by one 
The glories go that glories won; 
At Time's continuous, fateful call 
The palaces and temples fall; 



While heroes do their deeds and then 
Sink down to earth as other men. 
Yet, let the Poet's mind and heart 
But touch them with the wand of Art, 
And lo ! they rise and shine once more 
In greater splendor than before. 



INSIGHT 

One doubts, one fears, one calls on circumstance, 
And one is blown by every wind of chance; 
While yet another looks into his soul, 
And sails serenely to his destined goal. 



[ SO ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

REVERIE 



m 



w 



HAT realm is thine, thou gentlest ruler, 
sleep ! 



^^j^flT< All life obeys thee, while earth's myriad 

Ij^jgjiigjj^ graves 

But point to where thy ageless banner waves, 
And where thou dost unbroken vigil keep. 

Innumerous messengers are thine, who leap 

To do thy bidding — noiseless, nimble knaves, 
Who bring from out thy many-chambered caves 
Sweet dreams wherein the troubled brain to steep. 

And from thy choicest chamber steals thy child 
Poetic souls do know as Reverie; 
'Tis she whose fingers set the spirit free, 

So that from every fleshly hindrance isled, 

It may with Fancy roam the woodland wild, 
Or sail upon Imagination's sea. 



[ Si ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

TO A SOILED AND BROKEN VOLUME 
OF BAYARD TAYLOR'S POEMS 




OME, worthy waif, to my embrace; 
Let me with gentlest touch erase 
All soilure from thy pretty face, 
Remove the torn and faded dress 



That mars thy pristine loveliness, 

And bid the binder clothe anew 

Thy beauteous form, and there bestrew, 

With hand by loving taste controlled, 

His daintiest flowers of gleaming gold. 

Then shall I gladly house thee where 

The best of all thy kinsmen fare, 

And who will give thee welcome room 

Within the precints of their home, 

And where thine author sure would say 

Thou hadst at last not gone astray. 

There shalt thou have such tender care 

The bitter past will be forgot; 

And oft to thee shall I repair, 

To thrill beneath thy glowing thought; 

To follow thee at leisure times 

For art-grown pearls in distant climes; 



[ 52 ] 



TO A SOILED AND BROKEN VOLUME 

To have the sluggish feelings stirred 
By many a music-singing word, 
And mount with thee on lyric wings 
Above the touch of sordid things. 
Ah, then how happy shall I be 
At thought of having rescued thee! 



DEFIANCE 

Despair, I do defy thee and despise: 
Though seamed my heart with scars, 
Yet will I press undaunted toward the prize 
That blazes mid the stars. 




[ 53 ] 




VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 



ENDEAVOR 
I 
TILL am I tossed upon a troubled sea, 
Puzzled and doubting how to make my 
way; 



fflj^^jagj^ Resultless day follows resultless day, 
And even my dreams no solace bring to me. 

At Duty's call, unheeding other plea, 

Have I pushed forward, scornful of delay, 

Not idly lazing in the lap of play, 

Nor grieving over what might never be. 

And now, the years seem shorter as they run, 
Nor dares my life to hope for many more, 
Or should they come, that they will truly bless 

The best that lay within me has been done; 
And as an end all vainly I deplore 
Endeavor's dreary waste of fruitlessness. 



[ 54 ] 




ENDEAVOR 
II 

HOU wavering soul, what note is this 

to sound? 
Dost prate of Duty, yet art satisfied 
With what thou hast in scarce half- 
struggle tried? 
Dost beat thy wings against thy self-made bound, 
Forgetful that in Life's unresting round 

All marvellously wondrous things abide 
For him who seeks and will not be denied? 
And that the humblest may be jewel-crowned? 
O blinded one, unhood thy spirit's eyes, 

So they may truly see the world without, 
And that still other world which stirs within; 
Then canst thou soar through Hope's enchanting skies 
To peaks undarkened by the clouds of Doubt, 
And where to Victory thou mayst be kin. 



[ 55 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

TO KEATS 




T 



HOU art, O Keats, of all the poet race 
The Muses' most immediate, darling 
child; 
jgjigjgjsj They kissed thee at thy birth and fondly 

smiled, 
Foreseeing what thy splendors would embrace: 
Enchantments man would never cease to chase, 
And catch and catch again, and be beguiled, 
Till filled with rapture he should be so isled 
Upon such sparkling sea of fairy space. 
Thou clear-eyed spirit! Thou miracle of song! 
Greek and Elizabethan met in thee, 
To shake thy soul with Beauty's ecstasy; 
And though death would not let men hold thee long, 
Affection twines her greenest round thy name 
As loftier grows the column of thy fame. 



[ 5« ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

TO SHELLEY 

Bright seraph of the cloud and air, 

Couldst thou have left thine eyry there, 

And felt the earth beneath thy feet 

Till life for thee was all complete, 

Or had the waves not swept thee down, 

Thou mightst have worn still richer crown ; 

But why regret? — thy lyric lay 

Still wings its rapturing, skyey way, 

While that brute world which gave thee blows 

Now on thy tomb Love's roses throws. 

REFUGE 

The winds of Grief were driving him 

Upon the rocks despair had reared, 
When in the distance, faint and dim, 

The Star of Poesy appeared; 
And as toward her his face he turned 

With hope and courage in his breast, 
She then with greater fulgence burned, 

To light him to the Port of Rest. 

[ 57 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 



AT THE PRESIDIO OF SAN FRANCISCO 




HE rose and honeysuckle intertwine 
Their fond arms here in beauty's own 

sweet way; 
Here loveliest grasses never know decay, 
And every wall is eloquent with vine; 
Far-reaching avenues make beckoning sign, 

Where, as we stroll in lingering, glad delay, 
The trilling songster glorifies the sway 
That gives to him inviolable shrine. 
And yet, within this beauty-haunted place 

War keeps his dreadful engines at command, 
With scarce a smile upon his frowning face, 
And ever ready, unrelaxing hand . . . 

We start to see, when dreaming in these bowers, 
A tiger sleeping on a bed of flowers. 



[ 58 ] 




VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

NIGHT 

S oft of old, I watched the sun leap o'er 
The golden barriers of the farthest West, 
And saw the stars on heaven's deep azure 
breast 
In splendor blaze as never seen before; 
And then upon mine ear began to pour, 

In waves innumerous that knew no rest, 
The sharp, sweet notes of myriad ones that blest 
My inmost soul with more than music's lore : 
Unnoted these great stars glow all the day, 

Unheard these tiny insects chirp their lay — 
Eclipsed by louder sound, by brighter light. 
Thus many a sweet and patient one of earth 

Shines on, sings on, unmarked her priceless worth 
Till she has glorified Misfortune's night. 



[ 59 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

TRANSMUTATION 

O heart, with bitter tears o'erbrimmed, 
Grief does not sit alone with thee, 
For Faith and Love with eyes undimmed 
With her keep tender company, 
Where, if thou wilt, this woe of thine 
May be transmuted to a shrine. 

TENNYSON'S GOOD FORTUNE 

F all the poets never yet was one 
More blest by fortune than was Tenny- 
son: 
For half a century his pen so swayed 
The realm of Poesy that all obeyed, 
And owned he gave such jewelled song-words birth 
As could not well be matched upon the earth. 
His country held him closely to her breast 
As one in whom she was uniquely blest, 
While wife, and friends, and children, all were his, 
And spoils of wealth and noble dignities. 
He dreamed his dreams from clamoring man apart, 
His every passion centring in his art, 

[ 60 ] 




tennyson's good fortune 

And from his garden's quietude of shade 

In calm contentment all the world surveyed, 

Keeping his powers in such consummate bloom 

They never seemed to wither or to fade. 

And when had come the fateful hour of doom, 

Good fortune still was his : the moonbeams made 

Transfiguring beauty of his chamber's gloom; 

The Master's music lingered on his lips 

The latest ere his spirit passed away, 

And sudden sunlight burst through cloud's eclipse 

In golden glory on his coffined clay. 




[ 61 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

IN NOVEMBER 




HE year draws nigh the edge of death; 
for see, 



gjgX These dreary branches have already shed 

f^J^MW^ Such myriad leaves, they lie in mounds of 
dead 
At foot of each sad-hearted parent tree. 

Yet, grim and stern as human soul might be, 

The scarred, gray sycamores with defiant head 
Like warriors stand, while in its shrunken bed 
The languid stream flows on resignedly. 

Life is aweary and in quiet here 

Would rest awhile her care-tormented brain, 
As dreams she of the fast-departing year; 

While Melancholy, led by Memory's train, 

With pensive step now gently steals anear, 
To dew the ground with sacramental tear. 



[ 62 ] 




VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

THESEUS AND ARIADNE 

ITHIN the labyrinth's depths the Mino- 
taur, 

Slain by the sword she gave, lay stark 
and dead, 

And with his finger following her thread 

He issued forth to see the heavens once more. 

Then Theseus swiftly from the hated shore 
With Ariadne on his bosom fled, 
Still hearing, as toward Naxos on they sped, 
King Minos' cries above the ocean's roar. 

Deep-nested in love's softest down they lay 

When she to him : " Through me alone thy way 
To century-sounding fame has now been won; 

And yet I fear; — Oh, swear we shall not part!" — 
"By Aphrodite do I swear, sweetheart!" . . . 
Then rose portentous cloud and hid the sun. 



[ 63 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

ULYSSES AND CALYPSO 




OR that they slew the cattle of the Sun 
Ulysses' comrades sank to death while 
he, 
^n jM ffi Borne on the billows of the friendly sea, 
Calypso's lovely isle in safety won; 
Where filled with soothing rest his days did run 
To murmurous music's luring notes as she 
Bound him in coils of such captivity, 
That but for Zeus his soul had been undone. 
The God's decree the enamored nymph obeyed, 
And helped the hero as his raft he made, 
While brimmed her heart with desolation's tears. 
His glimmering sail she watched till in the sea's 

Great void 'twas lost, then moaned because her 

years 
Were not as mortal as Penelope's. 



[ 64 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

NARCISSUS 



w 



A 



WAY from Echo's plaint Narcissus led 
His steps where lay a moss-engirdled 



t}%^!sS^££a And wearied stooped to taste its waters 
cool ; — 

When down he sudden fell as if struck dead. 
At last he gazed; then tried to clasp the head 

And kiss the face so strangely beautiful; 

Yet he but marred the mirror's waveless lull, 

And wept to find his radiant vision fled. 
No food he sought nor sleep ; to gaze and sue, 

Burned by the noonday sun and drenched with 
dew, 

Were his alone until his parting breath. 
The nymph he scorned with kindly hand did strew 

Sweet grass and bloom upon his bed of death, 

And on the spot a flower immortal grew. 



[ 6 5 ] 




VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

ORESTES 

HEN Agamemnon on the wings of fame 
From conquered Troy to Clytemnestra 

flew, 
She kissed him as ^Egisthus pierced him 
through — 
A pair of devils in immortal shame ! 
Orestes heard, and all his quivering frame 

Surged with a wrath the Pythoness so blew, 
That with his mother's blood he dared imbrue 
The hand till then snow-white of any blame. 
Whereat the snakes of torture round his head 
Still closelier clung as on and on he fled 
Before the vengeful, fierce Eumenides; 
But when the Tauric Artemis he bore 

To Argos' land, Athene's self did seize 

The raging Furies, and they scourged no more. 



[ 66 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

TO GOETHE 




]OD built thee on the noblest plan, 
Thou universal, fruitful man! 
No life there was thou couldst not feel, 
No learning thou didst not acquire, 

And these thine art did so anneal 

They glow as with perpetual fire : 

The heights of hope, the vales of fears; 

The agony of soul-drawn tears; 

The human heart in every guise; 

The weak, the strong, the fool, the wise; 

Beauty in all its good and ill ; 

Temptation's snare, heroic will; 

Poor, erring man as on he goes 

Through hates and loves, delights and woes; 

All these did in thy passion throng, 

To breathe immortally in song. 

Thy serious soul surveyed the all, 
Contemning not what seemed the small, 
Nor lost in mazes of the vast; 
While all thy years thou wisely wast 
The conqueror of thyself, who could 
Dispart the evil from the good, 

[ 6? 3 



TO GOETHE 

And calmly sit above the show 
Of froth and fume that raged below, 
And with unique, compelling force 
Ordain for man his proper course. 
Thy piercing vision saw the springs 
That lie within the heart of things, 
And thy imperial voice shall sound 
Its notes to earth's remotest bound, 
To point the way, with good bestrown, 
To Wisdom seated on her throne. 




I 68 ] 




VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

ARRIA 

HEAR, and shake not, that thou art 

decreed 
By thine own hand to miserably die — 
Now, when thy fortunes blossom and 
the eye 
Of fate beams bright as with prophetic meed; 
And why shak'st thou in this thy spirit's need 

When Death and Caesar stand relentless by? 
Arouse thy soul till thy defiant cry 
Proclaims? once more our matchless Roman 
breed."— 
" O wife, to close this day my book of years 
Is unimagined pain; this proffered steel 
The horror's sum of horrors unto me." — 
" Give me the blade, that so thy griefs and fears 

May drown in mine own blood. I strike . . . 

and feel 
No hurt, my Paetus . . . now the point's for 
thee." 



[ 69 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

PERPETUA 



r — wit I 




fe^H 


M 


I ^ A ^*av l 


KS^^ 


r ; ioa«iii^" 



Y father, plead no more; — wouldst have 
me wed 
Remorse in life, and then in flames to lie, 
When from the blood of Caesar's circus I 
Can leap to Heaven to be chapleted? 
Has not our holy Saint Ignatius said 

God's wheat we are, that, for his purpose high, 
And in his boundless love, should be ground by 
The teeth of monsters into Christ's pure bread? 
Then welcome the arena's glorious ruth ; 

I long to feel the lion's rending tooth 
Till all my body reeks with horrors fell. 
And yet, dear father, ere from thee I go, 

It touches me to think of that great woe 
Which will be thine eternally in Hell. 



[ 70 3 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

DANTE AND BEATRICE 




WORLD-COMPELLING Dante, who 
^ the sea 



J8X Of Poesy so stirred from shore to shore, 
-nljgl That even as yet its surging thunders 

roar 
In tones undying as eternity; 

With master spirit so supremely free 

It scorned all bonds and swept through every 

lore, 
On wisdom's pinions at the last to soar 
To empyreal world of ecstasy! 

The crown of sorrows with its thorns was thine; 
But in thy bosom blazed the fires divine 
That lit thy track to Paradise from Hell; 

And she who gendered their supernal light 

Has starred forevermore the magic might — 
Disputeless miracle — of woman's spell. 



[ 71 ] 




VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

EDELWEISS 

fO-MORROW from Zermatt we'll see 
the grand, 
Far Theodule and soaring Matterhorn ; 
And then, O joy ! as if for us just born, 
In luring nook the Edelweiss will stand." . . . 
The morrow's breeze the peak and glacier fanned, 
And fanned the form of her that crushed and 

torn 
Lay like uprooted lily pale and lorn, 
The fatal Edelweiss within her hand. 
Her body fouled with stains they bore far up 
From precipice's foot to church's arms, 
And would have earthed it 'neath memorial 
stone ; 
But vain the offer of this final cup: 

For she who fled the city's roars and harms 
Now found that even in death it claimed its own. 



[ 72 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

TO BALZAC 

ON READING HIS MEMOIR BY 

MISS WORMELEY 




NTIL I knew the story of thy years, 

It did not seem titanic power like thine 
, Could have been found in merely human 

'§££%. mine, 

Or could have mingled with life's hopes and 
fears ; 
For thy great spirit so sublime appears 

Among the kindred fellows of thy line, 
That every Muse would hail thee as divine, 
And Atropos for once distrust her shears. 
'Tis so set down, yet strange I feel it still, 

That thou wast not the demi-god I deemed, 
But anxious toiler for thy daily bread; 
Thy bosom racked with many a torturing ill; 

And who, like others, when thy dreams were 

dreamed, 
Felt Death's dark angel settle on thy head. 



[ 73 1 




VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

NEAR MIDNIGHT OF DECEMBER 
THIRTY-FIRST 1899 

N retrospective dream I watch my fire, 
Erst bright with flame, to embers now 

decline, 
As thee, the youngest one of Time's long 
line, 
I see in his unfeeling arms expire. 
And as thou sinkest down, war's clamorings dire 

More horrent scream than when life first was 

thine, 
While man now drinks his brother's blood for 

wine 
With bestial, unappeasable desire. 
Thou seem'st of evil wrought, but so did they 

Thy vanished kin ; yet man still holds his way 
Through all the maze and tangle of despair; 
Still Love uprears her palaces divine; 

No deed's to do but finds some arm to dare, 
And God still lets his stars in glory shine. 



[ 74 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

ON RECEIVING A BUNCH OF HOLY 
GRASS 




B 



SSjjfrjSK Before the portals of the 

KSsmI Twas hol y called with 



ECAUSE on festivals its leaves were 
strown 

sacred fane, 
with one accordant 
strain, 
Till by that reverent name 'tis ever known. 
So now, most worthy lady thou dost deign, 

As Easter's music through the heart is blown, 
To strew this grass before me as mine own — 
Me, a poor singer, piping all in vain. 
How joyed the mountain torrent where it grew ! 
What opulence of golden hours it knew 
Where Solitude, unconquered, reigned alone ! 
Though lifeless quite, it still yields balmiest breath, 
As some dear soul, in all the graces grown, 
Exhales divinest perfumes even in death. 



[ 75 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 



VOICES 




)ROM out the azure's depths serenely 
falling 
At times I hear celestial voices calling, 
And then in spirit-flight 



I soar from murky Night, 
To seek their presence in the fields of Light. 



And by their marvellous tones the air is shaken, 
Until I feel my fearsome soul awaken 

To faiths that set it free; 

And calm as one might be 
I dare to ask, what death can come to me? 




[ 7« ] 



FIVE SONNETS 
SUGGESTED BY SOME PICTURES 
PAINTED 
BY WILLIAM KEITH 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 



MORNING 



D 



EEP-BROODING Night has done its 
worst and best, 

fl^S^^X And once again we front the new-born 

Where now the sickled moon with lessening ray 
Hangs low upon the sky's auroral breast. 

The earth, soft-garmented in robes of gray, 

Drinks heaven's sweet dew with such delightful 

zest, 
She fain would see time held a prisoner lest 
The sun should sweep her present joys away. 

Home kindles now her necessary fires, 

Whose shafts of smoke, that gently pierce the air, 
Like incense seem in worship of the Morn. 

And as we list to these far-sounding lyres, 

So great all grows, so most divinely fair, 
The soul, fresh-winged, upsoars as if reborn. 



[ 79 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 



II 




BY THE ROADSIDE 

ROM root to leaf each merry-hearted tree 
Breathes the sweet air as with divine 

delight, 
And even the clouds, o'ercome by 
beauty's might, 
But swell the woodland's deep-drawn ecstasy; 
And yonder horsemen jewelled in the light, 
Shout to the sky in wantonness of glee, 
As though for them no future could there be 
Of mad despair's insufferable night. 
With weary feet, and heart sore charged with woe, 
A woman sits the grass-fringed road beside, 
Deep in her soul the iron of the years. 
"Ah, joyous ones," she sighs, " could ye but know 
What bitter ruth will clip your soaring pride, 
Ye would return and blend with mine your 
tears ! " 



[ 80 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 



III 



INTO THE MYSTERY 




HE palpitating splendors of the West 
In mystery tremble through the wood, 

as Day 
With noiseless footfall slowly steals 
away 
To Night's star-lighted palace and to rest. 
Save where the cavaliers spur on with zest, 
As if some fateful message to convey 
For leagues beyond, all sounds of sad or gay 
Lie stirless on the landscape's lovely breast. 
And should we ask these horsemen in their pride 
What word it is they carry on their ride, 
And what dear heart to hear it breathed would 
break, 
They sure would say: " Such word is ours alone; 
To Dreamland only is that loved one known; 
Yet we shall ride forever for her sake." 



[ Si ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
IV 

MEMORIES 




T 



HE darksome waves of all thy fourscore 
years 
igT< Break on thy bosom's solitary shore, 
gjjag| Where mid the wreckage of memorial 

lore 
Sorrow sheds fast her unavailing tears. 
As through the long-drawn time thy vision peers, 

What hopes pass by that mock thee as of yore, 
What fragrant blossoms, gone forevermore, 
Lie heaped upon thy heart's uncounted biers! 
Oh, tell me gentle lady, from thy chair, 

That holds thee now in Memory's thraldom 

chained, 
Have nought but toils and pains been thy 
increase ? — 
Ah, friend, not so: some of my days were fair; 
Much have I lost, yet much have also gained, 
And even in Grief's own cup have tasted peace. 



[ 82 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 



THE UNCEASING ROUND 




N centre of the canvas see this pine 
All stark in death, with arms in vain 

appeal 
For what it nevermore can taste or feel 



Of joys of earth or of the heavens divine. 

Straight as in life it stands, still bearing sign 
Of noble majesty and dauntless will; 
While at its base its elder brothers spill 
Their ashes where the grasses kiss and twine. 

A great-armed redwood centuries have blessed 
Uptowers, while with bliss of life possessed 
The forest sings in grand, harmonious tone. 

And careless men pass by — the children they 
Of other children death has made his own, 
And who like them will strive and pass away. 



[ 8 3 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

BROWNING 




H 



ERE was a Titan — one whose teeming 

thought, 
, In unfamiliar channels, broad and deep, 

^P^jjffi Flowed grandly on in undimished sweep ; 
One who, by nature as by learning taught, 
In many a mine of human passion wrought, 
With such keen vision, such soul-searching ways, 
As ne'er were blazoned in the sight of men 
Save by his own and Shakespeare's sovran pen; 
One who met truth with never-flinching gaze 
As on he walked with Muse for loving guide; 
Who held his road, despite of blame or praise, 
In noble scorn of intellectual pride, 
And yet who could with any man be free, 
And in his breast some thing of beauty see; 
Who bore Faith's ensign, starred with heartsome 

hopes, 
Undaunted up Doubt's demon-haunted slopes ; 
Who kept to earth the while his questing eyes 
Ranged all the reaches of the farthest skies; 
And who, with fame that purples every tide, 
Sleeps, where 'tis meet he should, by Chaucer's side. 



[ 84 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 



TO THE SIERRAS 




HOU beckonest to me and I come once 
more; 
Once more to lay my head upon thy 
breast, 

And feel thy easeful, all-sufficing rest 
Body and mind deliciously steal o'er. 
My soul so hungers for thy liberal store, 
That every feeling with insatiate zest, 
On thought's own wings by fancy's magic blest, 
Leaves far behind the town's tumultuous roar. 
'Twere joy enough to have thee once again, 
If such possession were my very last 
This side of death : to fly the haunts of men, 
And mid thy solitudes outstretching vast, 

To be as one with all thy countless brood, 
Nor dare to question God's eternal good. 



[ 8 5 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

PROOF OF GOD 




D 



OST ask for proof of God? — Thou 

mayst as well 
, Ask of the daisy on its humble throne 
§l%%£^j£l Whence, how or why its loveliness has 
grown ; 
Or pray the world-compelling genius tell 
The secret cunning of his magic spell; — 

But when their hearts lie close against thine own 
Until their pulse-beats thrill thee to the bone, 
Doubt's demons perish in their self-made hell. 
The wings of Reason beat themselves in vain 
Against the ether of a soundless air, 
To fold at last in logic's dull despair. 
Divinely ordered is this fruitless lore: 

For were God proved, all mystery would be 

plain, 
And man himself, as man, could be no more. 



[ 86 ] 



r-^vi 




fe*vW) 


B 


I^^P^I 


frS^^S 


^gg^ 


L — *^ ■»■ 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

TO THE SONNET 

OUND in the fetters of thy narrow frame 
What souls have conquered song! — 

Here Dante's woe, 
As Petrarch's, swells to joy; here Angelo 
Greatens the glory of his mighty name; 
'Tis here that Shakespeare bears his breast to blame, 
And here that Milton stoops, great strains to 

blow; 
Here Wordsworth's notes with rapturing music 

flow, 
While Keats divinely glows with quenchless 
flame. 
Yea, all the rhymsters of our modern day 

Crowd round thy shrine, and beg thee to enring 
Their brows with leaves of thy unwithering bay; 
Such crown is not for me, but prithee fling 
Thy spell upon me, so at least I may 
Yet dream of beauties I can never sing. 



[ 8 7 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

THE LAST JOURNEY 

In Memory of Professor Joseph LeConte 
July 6, 1901 



1 
OISELESS as fall of lightest thistle- 
*^ down 




58X Upon the grass, Death's vast-winged 
*oJjj£[ messenger, 

Unseen of mortal eye, alighted where 
Yosemite uprears her matchless walls, 
And pours her cataracts from many an urn 
In thunderous chorus of triumphant song. 

11 
Long have I waited, Death had said to him, 
For one resplendent head that long has lain 
In peace of love within the hearts of men, 
But until now I dared not strike the blow; 
For I am not all evil, as thou know'st, 
And when I saw this man of noble soul, 
In lovability beyond all words, 
Give of his bounty each recurring year, 
Enriching every place whereon he trod, 
And making brighter all the air he breathed — 

[ 88 ] 



THE LAST JOURNEY 

A very sun that conquered darkest cloud — 
I shrank from sending my resistless dart, 
That waits for all, against a head so crowned. 
But now, as lies he in the arms of her 
He long has loved — the great Yosemite; 
As on his ear the thunder of her falls 
Beats, and he lists with new-awakened joy; 
As his observant eye once more beholds 
Her streams, her trees, her towers and domes, 
With all the myriad beauties of her floor; 
And as he hears and gazes, his great heart 
Bursts into raptures he cannot conceal; 
As now his powers are ripened to their best, 
And may begin to wane in sight of men; 
'Tis good I do, not ill, to strike him down. 
But do thine office gently on this man, 
And let thy blow be quick and merciful. 

in 
The messenger obeyed; and he that was 
So nobly crowned with life's supremest gems; 
Who but a few short hours before had been 
A very fountain whence outgushed a stream 
Of most abounding and exalted good, 
Lay like a clod — no light within that eye 

[ 89 ] 



THE LAST JOURNEY 

Which once had challenged all the paths of space, 
No speech upon that tongue which once had drawn 
The hearts of thousands with its lightsome charm. 

IV 

The mourning Valley could not keep his clay, 
But round it twined her garlands wet with tears 
Of eyes that looked their lingering last on that 
Which coffin-housed upon the wain was lashed. 
As sank the sun behind the soaring domes, 
And all the Valley's length in shadow lay 
Sombrous and deep, she gave his body up — 
Her walls in saddened gaze as ne'er before, 
Her falls in muffled tones as ne'er before, 
Her river sounding dirge as ne'er before. 

v 

The day's last breath was drawn, and brooding night, 

With her procession of innumerous stars, 

In new-born mystery spread her sable wings, 

As now the dead and living, silent all 

Save for the grinding of the wheels that toiled 

Full slowly up the long, steep mountain-side, 

Passed through the endless ranks of firs and pines. 

The gloom of solitude was in their depths, 

[ 90 ] 



THE LAST JOURNEY 

The gloom of solitude was in our hearts; 

And what strange spectacle for them to see! — 

The coffined form of one who had in life 

Held genial fellowship with all their kind, 

To pauseless pass in quiet of the night, 

And he to them forever blind and mute ; — 

He that but scarce three days before had joyed 

To see their needles dancing in the sun, 

And had, in ecstasy of pure delight, 

His very heart's blood mingled with their own. 

Still on and on the living and the dead, 

As brighter and still brighter shone the stars, 

Passed through the darkness of the trees which seemed 

As still as he that lay forever dumb. 

The winds were sleeping in their distant caves 

With folded wing; nor bird nor insect chirped, 

Nor whispered any leaf. It was as though 

The mountain and her brood in reverent hush 

Were bowed before the loved, illustrious dead. 

Then swam the moon with more than splendor bright 
Up from the far horizon's edge, and shot 
The forest's gloom with radiant, silvery threads; 
And in that gloom all fairy forms were built, 

[ 91 ] 



THE LAST JOURNEY 

And quick as built dissolved, and then rebuilt, 
Of palaces and domes and dim arcades, 
While thickening shadows threw fantastic shapes 
Across the road where toiled the mournful wain. 

Still on and on the living and the dead, 

As higher and still higher soared the moon, 

Passed through the forest silent still as he 

That in his coffin all unheeding lay. 

Yet we were near him, and his soul and ours 

Communed through all the watches of the night: 

We thought of what his work had been to man; 

What seeds of inspiration he had sown; 

What love for each created thing was his; 

What meeds of glory he had justly won ; 

How bathed his soul in all the seas divine; 

How quick his eye to find the fair and good, 

How slow to see the ugly and the bad; 

And then we thought of that poor fool who asked, 

" Is life worth living? " 

Paler grew the moon 
As on and on the living and the dead 
Still passed, the grieving forest left behind 
Forevermore by him that voiceless lay. 

[ 92 ] 



THE LAST JOURNEY 

And now the Dawn, the sweet, mysterious Dawn, 
Showed her face dimly o'er the distant peaks, 
Then with a clearer glow and brighter smile, 
Till drowned and lost in the absorbent beams 
Of that almighty Sun which rules us all. 




NOW 

H, do not wait till in the earth I lie 
Before thou givest me my rightful meed ; 
Oh, do not now in coldness pass me by, 
And then cry praises which I cannot 
heed. 
If I have helped thee on thy weary way, 
Or lightened in the least thy burden's weight, 
Haste with love's tokens ere another day 
Shall pierce thee with the fatal words, " Too late." 
The present moment is thy time to live : 
The Past is gone, the Future may not be; 
If thou hast treasure of thy heart to give 
To hungry souls, bestow it speedily; — 

For sweet Love's sake, let not to-morrow's sun 
Tempt thee to wait before thou see it done. 



[ 93 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

WITH THE LARK 

Ah, mark 
That Meadow Lark, 
With note so silvery sweet, 
Skimming the golden sea of wheat 
As blithesome Dawn, in rosy-hued array, 
Shakes out the banner of the new-born day. 
Still on he goes with rapturous glee, 
A floating fount of melody. 
Oh, that my heart like his could beat 

In thoughtless joy complete; 
That under this balm-breathing sky, 

Without one question why, 
My soul in ravishment might rest 
On Beauty's radiant breast. 




[ 94 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

WITH THE EAGLE 

His eye 
Sweeps all the sky, 
As hard he grips the rock. 
Storm's ice-clad brood that round him flock 
But blow the fires of his undaunted breast, 
And forth he fares in ecstasy of quest. 
Still up he goes, to proudly fling 
His own against the thunder's wing. 
O Eagle of the mighty heart, 

Give me of what thou art: 
Breed in my soul thy lofty air, 

That it may nobly dare, 
And with unconquerable will 
Face every darkest ill. 




[ 95 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

ATTAINMENT 



w 



E sigh for things we scarce may hope to 
gain, 

f^4^(^!^S ^ n ^ wn ' cn ' if a ^ our own > would give 
'^^gjj^ no peace; 

We vainly toil and struggle to release 
To knowledge nature's secrets; we complain 

That 'tis not given us to break some chain, 

To scale some peak, to win some golden fleece, 
To do some mighty deed whose light shall cease 
Only when moons no longer wax and wane. 

'Tis thus we empty all the springs of life, 
To lose the blessing at our very hand : 
For Faith and Love, with glory as of sun, 

Illume the path to Peace through every strife; 
No work is futile that is nobly planned ; 
No deed is little if but greatly done. 



[ 96 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

CONCENTRATION 




ARK how the florist's cunning hand 
compels 
That weed unique, the strange chrysan- 
themum, 

To crown one lonely stalk whose blossomed sum 
To giant size and gorgeous beauty swells — 
The forces pulsing in its myriad cells 

Combining, as with certainty of doom, 
To build the structure of a single bloom, 
Wherein the plant its dazzling triumph tells. 
So shouldst thou have the will, O struggling soul, 
To hold thy thoughts and actions to the pole 
Of one predominant, exclusive aim; 
Then may thy stalk a wondrous blossom bear, 

Which shall for thee achievement's glory wear, 
And be to others as a sign of flame. 



[ 97 ] 




VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

SUFFICIENCY 

ET vulgar Malice work its venomed will 
Against the heart that would as steel 
have stood 
'n^gjfi To shield the thing which strikes it; let 

the brood 
Of Envy swarm like bees a-hiving, and distil 
Poisons more sure than those of Borgian skill; 
Let Friendship wither, and a common good 
No more be nourished by her nectared food; 
And even dear Love insanely stab and kill. 
Let all this be, with ills as yet unguessed; 

And still, thou shalt as ocean wind be free, 
If bravely thou dost seek thy strength and rest 
Within thyself, bending compliant knee 

To Conscience only, and in peace possessed 
Of that all-crowning grace — Humility. 



[ 93 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

ENDURE THOU FALTERING SOUL 




'NDURE, thou faltering soul, thou 
shouldst endure: 
Though thou hast toiled and served un- 
blest of gain; 



Though clamors mock thy peace; though 
fortune rain 

Deep-wounding blows on thee, past hope of cure; 
Though hearts grow cold, while griefs have made 
thee poor 

In all save tears, till cumulative pain 

Dare proffer ease with death's too-tempting bane, 

E'en then, despairing soul, thou must endure. 
For lo, behold ! all fellows are thy kin 

From vastest sun to tiniest atomy; 

Yea, all that was, and is, and shall be, in 
The mystery-breathing, great immensity, 

Where thou art challenged for thy needed 
part — 

Then forward, with fresh courage in thy heart! 



[ 99 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

CONSECRATION 




w 



OULDST thou make happiness thy 
life's fond aim? 
J8K Wouldst walk self-satisfied those paths 
^ga£?/ alone 

Where fortune's perfume-freighted gales are 

blown ? 
Or toil for men to adulate thy name? 
Wouldst madly seek the things by pleasure strown, 
Unheeding all their emptiness and shame? 
Or dare the fabric of thy soul to maim, 
Could lucre's millions only be thine own? 
If yea, oh, let that angel one austere, 

Called Consecration, lead thy wandering feet 
Where blessedness may evermore be thine: 
Christ's gift she is — to man so wondrous dear 
In service by her spirit made complete, 
That Peace is hers eternally divine. 



[ ioo ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 



COMPENSATION 




LLIMITABLY vast the ocean rolls 
Before me as its wreck-strewn shore I 

tread, 
And in its depths I view the unnumbered 
dead 
Who stare for aye at unaccomplished goals. 
So, round the earth my sorrowing sight controls 

The sea of life with waves from slaughter red, 
Which heave forevermore above the bed 
Where lie the hopes and aims of myriad souls. 
Yet in that ocean's breast the pulses beat 

Which send rich blood through every country's 

veins, 
To serve the good whatever may befall ; 
And in this sea Joy still the heart constrains; 

Here Duty's jewels lie; and here Love's seat, 
Divine as that which broodeth over all. 



[ ioi ] 




VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

BEATITUDE 

HRICE blest is he, who, when Death 
comes 
To bear him off from all the dreams of 
cjgajj? earth, 
Can look serenely in his awful face, 
And hear the summons with complacent smile; 
Who, looking back on his memorial years, 
Can see the trees of undeclining green 
Rich with the golden fruitage of his deeds, 
That hate and envy would no longer touch; 
And who, with blessings on the ones he loved, 
And those who loved him in his worldly walks 
Where he dispensed the goodness of his heart, 
Can speak his last farewell without a sigh, 
And fall asleep as some outwearied child 
In soothing peace upon its mother's breast. 



[ 102 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 



MY MUSE 




F that my Muse can never hope to soar 
Above the summits where unwasting 

snows 
Are fellows of the stars; — if that she 
knows 
No swelling note of forest, sea, or shore; — 
If e'en no streamlet of melodious lore 

The tiniest craft of hers divinely shows; — 
Or not for her the lightest breeze that blows 
In voiceful harmony Parnassus o'er; — 
Yet her dear self I could not think to chide, 

Nor deem her less than some anointed saint 
Who guards my soul : sufficient unto me 
If in my deepest being she abide, 

To hold my wandering thoughts in sweet con- 
straint, 
And all that's noblest give me sight to see. 



[ 103 1 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 

SCORN NOT THE SINGER 




CORN not the singer though his tremu- 
lous lay 
JSSTjSi^t Ring not along the arches of the sky, 
2^38$ Content the daisy's lowly sweets to try 
As o'er the mead it wings its modest way; 
For nectar-laden it may chance to stray 

Near some lone heart that beats to hopeless cry, 
And yielding sweetness as it passes by 
Give strength to struggle for another day. 
O Poesy, thou mightiest of the Nine, 

Now more than ever do we need the aid 
Of e'en the humblest votary of thine; 
Now when, as old ideals begin to fade, 

In stress of doubt we question the Divine, 
And mid its splendors dare to be afraid. 



[ 104 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 



DREAM 




T may be that in some auspicious hour, 
When all life's currents run serenely free, 
A voice will come from Dreamland unto 



me 



Upborne on music of celestial power. 

Then in the garden of my heart some flower 
May burst to bloom in sudden ecstasy, 
And with delightful, deathless fragrancy 
Add mite of glory to the Poet's dower. 

O soul, thou feedest on the husks of hope, 

And starvest while the things within thy scope 
Lie all before thee in their bounty strown. 

And still, ah, let me for at least to-day 
Enjoy the vision ere it melt away, 
To be with other dreams forever flown. 



[ io 5 ] 



VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 



WHITHER 




H, my songs beloved, 
Whither do ye go? — 
O beloved Poet, 
That we cannot know. 



Who can tell what roses 
Will to-morrow bloom? 
Or what wings be folded 
In relentless gloom? 

We abide the future, 
As the greatest must — 
Sure to find the laurel 
Or be less than dust. 



[ 106 ] 



MAY 



